THINK OUTSIDE THE BLOX ON CNN

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“At first I don’t think anyone trusted or believed me,” Bobby Kasanga remembers of the scheme he put into action six weeks after his release from prison in 2015. He had spent eight years inside for armed robbery and, as that time passed, the next step he needed to take became clearer.

“Getting into crime was my fault,” he says. “But look at factors like a lack of opportunities, inequalities, household income, peer pressure, the people you hang out with, and how those things can have an influence. I thought: ‘You know what, I could start something.’”

Hackney Wick FC was born although it is evident, as Kasanga lists the dizzying number of initiatives in which the club is involved, that the name tells only part of the story. “I knew you can’t just be a football club: we had to be more than that,” Kasanga says. “The main thing for us is bringing a whole community together.”

It intrigued Kasanga, a promising non-league footballer in his youth who was raised in Peckham but found himself in Hackney after his prison term ended, that a vibrant London borough of almost 280,000 residents was so short of established clubs. He wanted to create an institution of which the area could be proud: one that used the gateway of football to provide opportunities and empowerment whose significance extended far beyond sport. First of all, though, he needed to get 11 players on a pitch.

“If I’m honest it sounded like a long shot,” says Simon Siriboe, who was alerted by mutual friends to a Facebook plea Kasanga had made for players and resources. “We met up and he was talking about forming a semi-professional club. I was thinking: ‘He’s just come out of prison, it’s going to be hard for him.’ But I could see his vision, so I agreed to play. I’ve seen a lot of people say they’re going to start something and never follow through, but I realised he was really passionate and deserved a chance.”

Siriboe became Hackney Wick’s first player and was one of only two to heed Kasanga’s initial overtures. In those early days, fielding a full XI would constitute an achievement. But Kasanga had bigger long-term plans and was prepared to work unstintingly. “I was broke and working night shifts in a bagel factory in Hackney Wick to feed myself and provide for the football team,” he says. “I’d literally go door-knocking with a yellow bucket, explaining I had been in prison and asking if people would support our new team. Some would just close the door. Others would leave it open, go upstairs and find some money.”

Kasanga’s efforts to find backing began to yield far greater fruit. Within two years, Hackney Wick had merged with the local club London Bari and, just as Kasanga had intended, turned semi‑professional. With the help of a local property developer, he was able to concentrate his full‑time efforts on expanding their operation. Nowadays their first team play in the Eastern Counties League Division One South, the 10th tier, along with sides such as Ipswich Wanderers and Harwich & Parkeston. They have designs on promotion and much more – Kasanga has no intention of setting limits on their on-pitch progress. He speaks most proudly, though, of the wider influence the club has been able to exert.

One of the conditions upon joining Hackney Wick is that, without exception, a player must commit at least two hours a month to volunteering for local good causes. “It’s a fundamental part of the club,” Kasanga says. “If an organisation tells us they need help, I’ll put it on our group chat and ask for two or three people to step up. We’ve helped at schools, hospices, women’s charities, gardening centres, half‑marathons, so many things. If you join our club you also have to be an ambassador for other causes. Anyone can say, ‘I want to start a football team today’, but you have to engage with the local community and earn their support.”